


Live & Thrive

by callunavulgari



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Hannibal (TV) Fusion, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Blood and Gore, Codependency, Comeplay, F/M, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Multi, POV Alternating, Polyamory, Public Sex, Scent Marking, Sibling Incest, Somnophilia, Still Werewolves, Threesome - F/M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-06
Updated: 2015-12-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 10:09:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5159834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callunavulgari/pseuds/callunavulgari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Now, for your first assignment of the week, I would like you to tell me,” Laura Hale tells them, casting her eyes relentlessly around the room. Searching, meeting each of her student’s gazes, until those dark intelligent eyes finally come to rest on Stiles. “What would drive you to kill?”</p><p>Stiles Stilinski, sixteen years old and new to the Future Agents in Training program, falls in love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Laura & Derek: 1996-2009

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jinxy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxy/gifts).



> Okay, so I tried to hit a lot of the points that you asked for. I was happy to see the Crossover/Fusion box selected, because they're my kyrptonite. And upon inspecting your tumblr, a Hannibal reblog was the first thing I saw, which went very nicely with the serial killer AU. I kind of... tinkered a little, so the end result is more of a mashup of the books and the tv series. Stiles technically has more in common with Clarice and Abigail than Will Graham, but I found the Future Agents In Training program when I was researching the FBI and couldn't resist including your underage prompt, even if I didn't technically go through with that particular explicit scene that I had planned. Long story short, hospital visits are not conducive to getting fics finished on time. Hopefully you like it! 
> 
> And finally, thanks for my last minute betas, maythetardisbewithyou, tattooedsterek, and juxtaposed. I didn't expect all of you to answer my call, but it definitely helped. You were all stars! Also, Jen, thank you so much for coming to my aid when I started freaking out about five hours before my due date. Title comes from the lyrics to Love Crime. Quote at the beginning was the quote used at the beginning of Red Dragon.

_One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things which are already in the mind._  
**-Alphonse Betillion**

 

 

 

 

  
You don’t start a love story with murder. It just isn’t done.

Love stories taste like candy slowly melting in one’s mouth. Like a favorite song on a perfect summer day. The perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Love stories don’t taste like blood.

Theirs, however, does.

  
.

A werewolf’s strongest sensory system will always be their olfactory system. Take away their eyes, their ears, and they will compensate for the loss. Taking away their sense of smell would effectively cripple them, so that’s the first thing that the Argents do. They clog Laura’s nose with other smells. The burn of sweet wolfsbane. Mountain ash. Smoke.

Then they take Cora and Derek from her, and listen to her howls deep into the night.

They starve her. Cut her. Maim her.

For a small eternity, Laura exists in limbo, unable to trust her senses, until all that’s left of her is so focused inwards that it’s as if she doesn’t exist. Her pack is gone. She is dying, grieving, and horribly alone.

They return Derek to her the next day, just as gaunt as she is. She traces his skeleton that night, curled around his bones, not yet convinced that this isn’t a dream. He whimpers at her touch, blood slicking his teeth and dark bruises in the shallow dip beneath his eyes.

The next day, the hunters bring them soup.

If Laura were alone still, she would dash the bowls against the wall. Watch the porcelain shatter and perhaps open a vein with its shards. But she isn’t alone. Sometime during the night, between holding Derek through his nightmares and feeding him the last scrap of rat she’d caught, she’s determined that he is real. That this isn’t a dream.

Laura is the last Hale alpha, and she owes it to Derek to keep him alive.

She feeds Derek most of the soup, then eats the rest herself.

When Kate comes to the door with her father the next day, they laugh and gloat, eyes glittering with malice. Then they toss Cora’s skull into the cell.

It bounces, once, twice, three times before it rolls to a stop at Laura’s feet, meat still clinging to the bone. There is nothing recognizable of their sister left in this. Her eyes have been removed, hair and skin gone with it, but it is Cora’s. Laura knows it the same way she knew when they’d lost their mother, father, brothers, cousins. Laura knows loss, and furthermore, she knows the familiar jut of her little sister’s cheekbones, her brow, and jaw, once crinkled in defiance.

“You mongrels didn’t even notice,” the hunters sneer as Laura stares and stares. As Derek howls, eyes and fangs flashing. Kate leans in close to the bars, a sick smirk on her pretty face.

“Tell me,” she whispers, plump lips so very red. “Did your sister taste good?”

 

  
.

Keeping Kate alive is Derek’s idea. They want her to suffer the way that they have. They want her starving and weak, until she retreats so far inside of her mind that there is no Kate Argent left.

Alan Deaton was a trusted friend of their mother’s, the pack emissary that never saw this coming, so they leave Kate in the cell that she’d made for them and call on him, but not before they slaughter her entire family in front of her. They let her marinate in her father’s blood and feed her only with scraps from her brother’s corpse.

Kate screams when they die, but after days of starvation, she takes the meat from their hands.

She eats slowly, tears streaming down her narrow cheeks while they watch.

They leave the next day.

  
.

Getting by in the world as a thirteen year old is harder than Laura thought. For a period of time, she and Derek do not leave the woods. They skirt across three states without ever seeing a single person, sticking to the wild that is in their bones. When they’re hungry, they hunt. When they’re thirsty, they find a stream to drink from. After all, it’s not as if the bacteria will kill them.

The first town that they edge their way into sends Derek into hysterics. It’s loud, even for her, but for Derek, it is excruciating.

Quietly, they retreat.

The next time they try, they’re more successful. It’s a small town. Quiet. Laura steals clothes for them from an honest to god clothesline strung up in a backyard that’s bordering the forest, and then nobody blinks at them.

They eat breakfast in a small diner in the heart of downtown, Derek twitching beside her every time the waitress passes too closely. Afterwards, Laura steals a car and learns how to drive.

.

On their sixteenth birthday, Laura crawls into bed with Derek and sits on top of him. He looks at her, patient but curious, and waits for her to explain.

She doesn’t explain with words. Instead, she speaks with her hands, letting them trail down his sides until she reaches the waistband of his pants. He blinks at her, still patient, as she takes them off.

“Oh,” he breathes when she wraps a hand around him. She cocks her head in question, but instead of brushing her off, he shakes his head, eyelids fluttering closed, then open again. His hips jerk up into her hand, which she figures is enough of an answer.

They don’t talk as she removes her own clothes or when she crawls back on top of him, this time with purpose. After all the pain that Laura has been through, taking her brother inside of her is easy, the pain almost negligible. She moves carefully, her touches exploratory at first, mapping out what actions provoke the most optimal pleasure as an afterthought while devoting most of her attention to assuring that Derek will not ejaculate too quickly.

It takes some doing, and by the time she’s satisfied her curiosity he is shivering under her, too stimulated by far.

She grips his throat gently between her teeth and that’s all it takes to push him over the edge.

Laura stays there for another moment, letting herself feel him soften and finally slip out of her, taking a streak of pearly ejaculate with him.

The feeling is not unlike the rush of blood to the head that she gets when she’s taken down a fresh kill, she’s pleased to note. It will be a fortunate alternative when they are unable to commit the time and effort into tracking someone down.

“That was satisfactory,” she tells Derek’s sleeping form.

.

The first person that Derek kills is Gerard Argent. It’s a joint kill, with Laura ripping open his bowels as Derek tears out his throat, but it counts. The first person that he kills without Laura is a hiker who’d passed too close to their camp.

The man screams when Derek jumps him, his face going white as Derek slashes out, claws biting into his soft underside. He jerks, his scream cut off with a quiet, gasping gurgle. It takes ten seconds for Laura to wake up, and by that time, the man is already dead, Derek hunkered down over his body like a feral animal. She coaxes him away with quiet whispers, and Derek curls up in her arms.

They sleep, for awhile, and when they wake, Laura looks at him.

“What are we going to do with all of this?” she asks him, pacing a short circle around the corpse.

Derek considers it, then shrugs. “Meat’s still good.”

The third time Derek kills someone, he stops keeping count.

.

“The FBI, Laura?” Derek asks her, glaring daggers at the applications she’s brought to him. “Really?”

Laura shrugs, her shoulders bouncing. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

Derek shifts the glare to her, narrowing his eyes when she blinks innocently back at him. “We don’t even have our degrees yet.”

“Six months,” Laura chirrups happily. “I’ve checked. When we graduate in the spring, we’ll meet all of their requirements.”

“But why?”

Laura reels him in by the sleeve of his jacket, leaning up to press a kiss to the tip of his nose. She gives him a wicked grin, fingers creeping inside his waistband. Derek’s mouth goes dry. She kisses him again, properly this time, and when she pulls back, her mouth is full and red. Her eyes dark.

“I think,” she breathes. “The question you’re looking for is: why not?”

.

Derek’s been staring at the cookbook for ten minutes when an idea hits him.

Up until now, they’ve eaten their kills like wolves. They’ve hunted their humans like wolves and they’ve killed them the same way, with a swipe to the throat or belly. Then they would glut themselves on the meat, their muzzles wet and red.

Maybe it’s time to start eating their kills like humans.

“Laura,” he calls. “I have an idea.”

They take the cookbook with them.

.

Five years later, they have a name. The Chesapeake Ripper.

.

The morning is early, their home still dim. They get ready for the day in the shadows and the soft morning light, Laura zipping up her dress and slipping into her shoes as Derek fights with his tie. Then, when Laura’s done, she steps around the bed and reaches out to do his tie for him.

Her smell hits him like a punch to the gut, same as it always does, and he reels her into him. They can run the risk of being late if they want to.

Derek bends her over the edge of the bed and kicks her legs apart as she hikes up her skirt, her mouth laughing as she glances over her shoulder at him, eyes burning. She growls at him playfully as he pushes her down, one hand between her shoulders, until her nose is buried in the pillows.

On mornings like these, Laura likes it hard and fast. She wants him to fuck her so hard that it’s a fight to heal herself, so when he presses inside of her, he isn’t gentle.

The wild is in their blood, even now. They fuck like wolves, same as every morning.

“Remember,” Laura tells him afterwards as she’s smoothing her skirt back down. She touches his face once, as they’re stepping into the car. They won’t touch again until they get back in the evening. Those are the rules. “The kids are coming today, so be good.”

Derek snorts and starts the engine. “I’m always good.”


	2. July 2009

“Everyone has thought about killing someone,” are the first words that Laura Hale ever speaks to him, looking kindly down on her students from her podium at the front of the room. She smiles grimly, a slight twist of her mouth as she indicates the photograph projected onto the wall behind her. In it, the recently deceased Mrs. Marley stares unseeingly out into the classroom, a pool of her own blood giving her the appearance of a halo. “One way or another.”

Another smile, even smaller than the first. She leans forward, both elbows on the podium, chin resting on her folded hands. Her eyes seem to glitter in the dim light, face wreathed in shadows. Mystery, even.

“Now, for your first assignment of the week, I would like you to tell me,” she tells them, casting her eyes relentlessly around the room. Searching, meeting each of her student’s gazes, until those dark intelligent eyes finally come to rest on Stiles. “What would drive you to kill?”

Stiles Stilinski, sixteen years old and new to the Future Agents in Training program, falls in love.

Two hours later, when their class is passed over to the next instructor, a Special Agent Derek Hale, it happens again.

.

“Stiles Stilinski,” Laura says on the way home. Derek glances at her, cataloguing the way her brows are turned down in concentration, how she’s absently picking at her thumbnail. It’s the dead of summer and the car is still hot from the day it’s spent parked in the lot, so she has her hair pulled back in a messy bun, sweaty strands clinging to the nape of her neck.

Stiles Stilinski. One of their new students. Sixteen years old, young face, brittle bones, wolf eyes. He wouldn’t be much of a challenge to kill. Not much meat on his bones. Laura must have a different reason for mentioning him.

“What about him?”

She huffs out a breath of air, leaning forward so the air conditioning is blowing right in her face. Her lips tilt upwards as she gives Derek a sly look from under her lashes. “He’s interesting.”

Derek quirks an eyebrow back at her. “Is he?”

“He thinks outside of the box. Very clever,” she explains. “I like that in a person.”

Derek narrows his eyes when a red Honda cuts him off, pressing on the brakes accordingly. The man driving the Honda is in his mid-fifties. Large. Most likely diabetic. The meat would taste awful, but for a moment, Derek is tempted.

“He’s young.”

Laura nods. “We were young once.”

Derek looks at her, wondering if she’s actually serious. He doesn’t know what she’s suggesting. That they should mentor the boy? As far as he knows, that’s already part of their job description. “He disrupted my class three times today.”

Laura snickers. “But was he clever about it?”

Derek opens his mouth. Closes it. Asks, after another moment of slightly humiliated silence, “What are you suggesting?”

“We get to know him a little,” she shrugs. “That’s all. I think you’d like him.”

They pass one mile marker, then another. Almost home now. They’re going to go hunting tonight, he knows. It’s a good night for it. Derek has a recipe set out on the kitchen counter already, and Laura’s probably already chosen the meat.

By the time he decides to reply, they’re pulling into the driveway.

“I don’t find him very interesting.”

“Don’t worry,” she tells him with a secretive smile. “You will.”

.

Stiles is going insane. That’s the only explanation for it.

The hotel he’s staying at for the week is cheap and smells like mothballs and mildew, the scent sticking in his nose for hours afterward, even after he leaves. The air conditioning is out, which means that he’s constantly sweaty, his whole body sticky. It’s fucking awful.

Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe he just smells bad.

Laura Hale gives him another smile, her perfect cheeks scrunching up into dimples. She doesn’t even stop lecturing, still going on about a cold case from a couple years ago as she gives him heart palpitations, making eyes at him from the front of the classroom like she can see through his fucking pants.

But no, he’s imagining things. Laura Hale is smoking hot. Songs have probably been written about Laura Hale’s goddess-like beauty. There’s absolutely no way that she’s interested. She’s just being nice. Really, really fucking nice.

Since he walked into her lecture, she has brushed her hand over his shoulder twice and smiled at him eight times. He doesn’t even know how many times she’s made eye contact. It’s becoming a problem.

Something weird is going on with her brother too. If Stiles had fallen in love with Laura for the way she smiled, he’d fallen for Derek for the exact opposite. The Hales had genetics going on for them, sure, but there was something else about them. A kind of magnetism that drew you right in, made you want to know them.

Derek Hale, as much as Stiles can tell, isn’t knowable. And maybe Laura isn’t either, but she at least plays the part. It’s easy to cut and paste her into different scenarios — sunbathing in Morocco, hiking in the backwoods of Canada, reading a novel in the bookstore his mom used to take him to as a kid — and imagine himself with her. If she’s a mystery, she’s all wrapped up in the mundane to throw you off of the dark that lurks just underneath.

Derek is another story. He has a permanent scowl on his face and tends to bark orders or bite out scathing insults rather than offering simple encouragement. He has shoulders that look like they were designed for the sole purpose of throwing people around and proves it by doing a hundred chin ups in less than a minute on their first day. Stiles couldn’t imagine Derek getting a milkshake with him, much less making out with him in his shitty hotel room.

Derek is a mystery. Stiles can’t imagine him having fun. Can’t imagine him having lunch with his sister or going out to have a night on the town. He can imagine Derek pinning him to a table and fucking him til he screams, but that’s about it.

He’s had crushes on teachers before. But never before Derek and Laura Hale has he actually wanted to act on those impulses. And he’s certainly never thought that his hopeless affections might actually be returned.

But there they are.

The facts.

Laura Hale keeps touching him. And now Derek’s acting weird too, glancing Stiles’ way almost as often as his sister does, his face still holding onto that infamous serial killer scowl, but ever so often, the expression will crack and for precious moments, hold something else instead.

It’s a mystery. A sexy, confusing mystery.  
  
.

On Stiles' third day, he disarms a bomb. It's a fake, of course, but that hadn't stopped the entire classroom from panicking. Hadn't changed the way his heart jack-rabbited against his ribcage either, or the sweat rolling down the bridge of his nose. But he'd done it. Stiles had done it, with help from a very select few of his classmates, and when Derek came into the room after, Stiles had laughed breathlessly and Derek had actually smiled at him. _Smiled_. As if he _approved_.  
  
When the day ends, Laura Hale finds him in the parking lot. She’s lovely as usual, dressed to the nines, her heels clicking across the pavement as she approaches him.

“Stiles,” she says, flashing him a disarming grin. “I was hoping that we would catch you.”

Stiles blinks at her, surreptitiously checking his surroundings. “We?”

She laughs, biting down on her lip afterwards, as if she hadn’t meant to do that. It’s wildly endearing. “Derek’s lurking in the car over there,” she explains, gesturing to a muscle car that’s idling across the lot. She leans into him, cupping a hand over her mouth as she confesses, “Nobody here would know it, but secretly he’s just shy.”

Stiles doubts that, but he smiles anyway. “That so.”

She nods, glancing back over her shoulder and rolling her eyes at the car. “Anyway, before my stupid brother leaves me stranded, I wanted to ask you something. It’s a bit unorthodox, but I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with us?”

“Dinner,” he parrots back.

Laura hums agreeably, taking a half a step closer to him. “Just dinner. I’ve seen your jeep at the diner down the road twice now, so I figured you might appreciate a home-cooked meal. Everything about that place is horrible.”

“Ah… I don’t know. Can’t you get in trouble for that?”

Laura shrugs and winks at him. “Might as well live on the dangerous side for the night. Derek’s cooking, if you wondered.”

“Is he planning on poisoning me?”

Laura snorts, shifting until she’s leaning up against the jeep. She’s so close now that he can feel her heat seeping through the sleeve of his shirt.

“Not likely,” she tells him, then extends him a hand. When Stiles just stares at it, she waggles it pointedly in his direction. Adds, “Well? Are you coming?”

“Live on the dangerous side, right?” Stiles says with a grin. “Sure. Why not. You, me, your surly brother. It’ll be a blast.”

He takes her hand.

.

“Hope you like lamb,” Derek hears Laura tell Stiles from the living room. It’s been two hours since they brought their little lamb home and Derek still can’t tell if Laura wants to fuck him or eat him.

In three days, Derek hasn’t learned much about Stiles.

He’s clever. There’s that. That’s what drew Laura to him, no doubt about it.

He presents solutions that nobody else would have ever thought of and then blinks it off like it’s no big deal. He laughs with his whole body while pretending to enjoy the company of his fellow students. His smiles never quite reach his eyes. He hides his past easily, brushing off his fellows whenever he’s asked where he came from. Derek has heard six separate origin stories already. Six.

He smells delicious.

Laura was right though. It’s enough to pique Derek’s interest.

He wants to take Stiles apart. Wants to touch every inch of him until Stiles gives him something real to go off of. He wants to watch Laura take the kid in to the root, wants to watch her ride him until his pretty little mouth drops open in pleasure. He’d suck the kid off after, maybe make him fuck Derek too. Laura could teach him the way he likes it.

Derek serves them at the big table in the dining room, going out of his way to brush against Stiles’ shoulder as he serves him. Laura gives him an approving little smile.

“So, Stiles,” Laura purrs as Derek takes his seat. “What makes you want to be an agent?”

Stiles, who had been dipping his finger in the sauce, flashes Derek a guilty look and quickly sucks his finger into his mouth. He clears his throat once, dropping a napkin in his lap when Derek passes it his way.

“Uh. I mostly just figured hell, why not, right?” He winces. “I mean, that’s probably not the answer you were looking for, but I’m good at figuring things out. Always have been.”

Laura smiles widely. “If I was looking for an answer, that might have been it.”

Stiles coughs into his fist, a delicate blush tracing its way up his neck. He takes a bite too quickly in response. It’s almost funny, the way his eyes go wide with surprise, darting down to his plate then over to Derek. He chews rigorously, swallows, and asks, “You seriously made this?”

Derek nods, trying hard not to look too pleased. “I did.”

Stiles takes another bite, his eyes shuttering in bliss. “Man, that’s good,” he sighs happily. “Laura, I might have to ask your permission to marry your brother in a minute here.”

Laura snorts, taking a delicate bite from her own fork. “What are we waiting for?”

“Dessert. If that’s up to snuff, I’ll be down on one knee before the night’s over with.”

“Will we get you down on both knees if we play our cards right?” Laura teases, biting down on a smile.

Stiles ducks his head down immediately, staring into his plate as the blush comes back in full force. Derek watches with interest as it curls over his ears and cheekbones. Stiles is chewing on his lips, clearly fighting over what to say.

“Is that what this is about?” he asks at last, looking from one of them to the other. “I’ve been going over it in my head, over and over again, but I couldn’t figure it out. So is that really it? You wanted to fuck me?”

Laura blinks once, removing her napkin from her lap and setting it beside her plate. “We invited you to dinner because we wanted to get to know you.”

Stiles narrows his eyes. “But you also wanted to fuck me.”

“Yes,” Laura admits, nonplussed. “We also wanted to fuck you.”

Stiles twitches, as if he hadn’t expected her to come right out and admit it. He licks his lips, eyes darting over to Derek. “Both of you?” he asks in a squeaky voice, eyes tracing the curve of Derek’s jaw.

“Both of us.”

“Together?”

Laura’s smiling now, clearly trying to hold the laughter in. Derek is silent, because Laura’s better at things like this. “Yes, together.”

“But why?”

Laura snorts, her eyes glittering in amusement. She leans in, one elbow on the table as she stares the boy down. She looks like she wants to eat him alive. “Why not?”

As Stiles sits there gaping at her, Derek calmly gets to his feet. He crosses around to Stiles’ side of the table, then very carefully draws the seat back, until there’s room enough for him to fit between Stiles’ legs. He goes to his knees, eyes locked on Stiles’ mouth.

Stiles is hard. Fully hard, the shape of his dick clearly visible through the denim. Curiously, Derek ducks his head to mouth it through the fabric, suckling on the head until he tastes the salty tang of precome on his lips. Only then does he pull back, sucking a deep breath through his nose and giving Stiles’ cock one last nuzzle.

Derek licks his lips, looking up at the boy through the cover of his lashes. Stiles’ eyes are dark. His lips wet. Derek had already known that the boy wanted them, but this very moment, he knows that they can _have him_. “Do you still want to see what I have in store for dessert?”

.

“So,” Stiles says afterwards, breathless and still panting. His eyes are half-lidded, his whole body pliant and loose. He’s completely wrecked and his dick is still half inside Derek, but he’s somehow managing words. “When were you planning on telling me about the werewolf thing?”

There’s a silence that stretches. One minute. Two.

“Oh my god,” Laura whispers in the dark, turning to Derek with a sleepy, fucked-out grin. “Can we keep him?”


	3. 2015

Behavioral Science, the FBI section that deals with serial murder, is on the bottom floor of the Academy building at Quantico, half-buried in Earth. It’s never been Stiles’ favorite part of the place, even if it will be where he’ll be spending most of his time once he officially becomes an agent.

McCall is waiting for him there, looking on slightly judgemental when Stiles barrels in at a half-jog, grass still in his hair and sweat soaking through his sweatshirt.

“Stilinski,” he says, quirking an eyebrow.

Stiles coughs once. He reminds himself that this is his future boss. Derek’s boss. Laura’s boss. He can’t fuck this up.

“Sir,” Stiles replies, taking in McCall’s office with a once over. Force of habit trained into him since birth, one that Laura and Derek have spent the last several years reinforcing. What he finds doesn’t surprise him. Papers scattered everywhere, an antiquated computer sitting on the pock-marked surface of a desk probably older than he is. A single, dying plant slumping pitifully towards the window.

McCall is the surprise here. He’s a fit man. Total asshole, sure, but no one has ever doubted his ability to do his job. Now he looks like a shadow of himself. Puffy shadows under his bloodshot eyes, skin carrying an unnatural pallor. Too thin.

The Behavioral Science unit has been catching grief for months on the hunt for the Ripper, but it seems to have come to an all time high after the Ripper’s latest victim. Laura and Derek have discussed it, always briefly, over the dining room table or as an offhand comment in bed.

It’s been years since the Ripper started. He’s claimed over a dozen lives that they know of, and seems to be a complete ghost. No one can find anything on him, and after this last girl, the press have been losing their collective shits.

McCall gives him a quick once over, lip curling into what’s probably the start of a sneer. Must not like what he sees. “The Hales have told me a great deal about you, son.”

Stiles’ heart gives a little flip, as it always does when Laura or Derek are brought up at work. “All good, I hope,” he tries, offering McCall a fixed smile.

“Yes,” McCall says. “Very good. Top of your class. Double majors. Seem to think that you have some kind of knack for sorting things out.”

He pauses, then with a sigh, folds his hands before him. “Sit down, would you? Might as well be comfortable for this.”

Stiles takes a seat, gingerly, after setting some books to the side. “Am I in trouble, sir?”

McCall snorts. “No, no. The opposite, really.” He takes a deep breath, the shadows on his face seeming to deepen. When he lets the breath out, he looks older.

“Tell me, boy,” he says. “What do you know about the Chesapeake Ripper?”

.

“McCall pulled me onto the Ripper case today,” Stiles tells them that night at dinner. He takes a bite of his tenderloin, unperturbed when Laura breaks into a coughing fit. Derek helpfully pounds her on the back.

“Aren’t you a little young for something like that?” Derek asks mildly, once Laura has caught her breath.

“Someone’s been singing my praises apparently. McCall seems to think I have some kind of gift. Wouldn’t know anything about that, now would you?”

Laura winces. “Well, you kind of do?”

“McCall’s starting to get desperate,” Derek muses, shooting Laura a significant look. She narrows her eyes at him in response. Stiles doesn’t seem to notice the exchange.

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Pretty fucking desperate if he’s asking us trainees for help. He’s taking me out with him tomorrow, so I wanted to let you guys know, in case I’m back late.”

Laura smiles at Stiles, reaching over to stroke his hand. Everything about her screams affection, but Derek can sense the underlying agitation. They’ll go hunting tonight, after Stiles falls asleep. The sleeping pill that Derek slipped into Stiles' wine will see that he stays that way. They'll talk then.

“Well, don’t worry,” Laura tells him. “We’ll save you a plate.”

.

Derek isn’t home when Stiles returns the next night.

The house seems big and empty in the evening, without the clatter of pans from the kitchen or the sizzle of cooking meat. It even smells wrong, coming home without the scent of foreign spices lingering on the air and making Stiles’ mouth water.

He can hear Laura playing the piano though, some lingering melody that makes Stiles think of tragedies, and knows that despite Derek’s absence, he isn’t really alone.

The music pauses, then resumes, softer, as Laura calls, “Stiles?”

He takes a deep breath, kicking off his shoes. “I’m here.”

Whatever she’s playing spirals into a brief, dizzying crescendo, then stops. He can hear her laughter all the way from here. Can almost see her patting the piano bench beside her as she shouts back, “So come join me then.”

Stiles goes, crossing the house easily.

Laura’s playing again by the time he reaches her, glancing up out of the corner of her eye and offering him a smile as he slumps onto the bench beside her. She taps out a quick, cheerful little ditty, nudging their shoulders together. Her touch lingers. Warm.

“What’s got you so blue?”

Stiles licks his lips. Her shoulder is still bumped up against his, and he isn’t sure if he relishes the contact or despises it. “Another murder today. It was… graphic.”

Laura’s fingers don’t hesitate over the keys, but Stiles can see the pause in her eyes, how she considers her words carefully before she says, simply, “I see.”

 _And how do you feel about that?_ he hears, though she’s careful to not actually say anything of the sort. She’s like that, sometimes. Says that she tries not to bring work home with her if she can help it.

He breathes out again, slowly letting the tension bleed from his shoulders, his whole frame sagging with the weight of it. Might as well let it go. He’s been holding on to it long enough.

“I don’t think I ever really told you,” he finally says with a strangled laugh. “How my dad died. How… well, I guess how I came to be me.”

Laura hums agreeably. “You haven’t.”

Stiles gives her an exhausted half smile, rubbing a hand over his brow as he tries to think of what to say. How to say it. Laura could guess all of this probably, every last sordid detail of his past. Maybe even has. They’ve been so good to him. So good, always careful to never press at his obvious sore spots. Never asking too many questions. It’s why they work so well together. Stiles respects their secrets and they respect his. Whatever secrets of his that she or Derek may have gleaned over the years, they’ve kept quiet.

“When I was ten, my dad was shot in a convenience store robbery,” he starts, leaning more heavily against Laura. There’s a picture of them on the mantle that was taken on Stiles’ nineteenth birthday. He can’t look away from it. “Pure dumb luck that it got his heart, but hey. He was the sheriff, you see. These things happen.”

“My mom had died two years before, but she had family. A sister, in Poland. She was a nice lady. Real nice. Caught me up on the language, homeschooled me for awhile, even taught me a little about magic. That’s how I learned about werewolves and well, everything. All her.”

Laura’s staring at him now, her hands in her lap. It’s too quiet without the sound of her playing.

“It was cool, at first. She taught me how to make a bunch of really cool poultices and how to make little sparks of flame. It was like I was Harry Potter, and it was easy to forget sometimes, that I wasn’t just going to ride the Hogwarts Express home at the end of the year.”

Laura shifts, her finger tap-tap-tapping up his thigh, like a reminder that she’s still there. She looks at him, and asks, softly, “How long were you there?”

“Seven months.”

Her mouth twists. “Did they—”

Stiles cuts her off with a hastily flapped hand that almost clocks her in the nose. Fortunately, Laura is both quick and well-versed in Stiles’ ways. She dodges in time. “They didn’t hurt me,” he says, hastily.

“Then what happened?”

“When spring came around, my aunt said that she had something new to teach me. That I’d have to be careful and act my age. She handed me a baby sheep and took me into the woods. She had an altar of some kind there, see. I’d seen it before, but never like this. There were knives and a great big bowl, and she took the sheep from me. It struggled. It was so calm for me, but with her, it cried.”

“You ran,” Laura finishes for him, eyes bright with realization. Stiles nods.

“I knocked her down, took the lamb, and ran as far as my feet could take me.”

Laura tips her head onto his shoulder, humming again. Her hair tickles a bit at his elbow. “And how far was that?”

Stiles chuckles, shaking his head. “Maybe three miles? I made it to the closest village. Ten year olds with a terrified, stolen lamb don’t get very far.”

Laura’s eyes are very dark. “What happened then?”

“They took me back,” he tells her with a shrug. “I was a kid. My aunt took the lamb away and sent me back to the states. I lived at a group home in Virginia until I met you.”

“You still have the nightmares.”

It isn’t a question. Stiles doesn’t have them often, but they’ve all woken up to each other’s nightmares at one point or another. Laura’s always known about his nightmares, this is just the first she’s heard about what goes on in them.

“Yeah, sometimes.”

She cocks her head, long hair spilling down his chest. Outside, the sun has almost finished setting, casting long shadows on the wall. In the dim light, her eyes look flat and black. Almost inhuman. “Is that why you wanted to be an FBI agent? Because of your dad? To make your lamb stop screaming?”

“Yes. I don’t know. Maybe.”

Laura stares at him for a moment long. He knows that look. She’s calculating, the folder marked Stiles Stilinski in her head flipped open. He wants to say something barbed and vicious back, about how she isn’t supposed to bring work home with her, but he bites his tongue on the urge.

“Derek won’t be back til late,” she tells him at last, laying a hand on his arm apologetically. The change of subject is abrupt and painfully graceless for her, but he’s grateful for it. “Think we’ll survive on takeout for one night?”

Stiles laughs, catching her hand with his and squeezing. “As long as we don’t tell him.”

After dinner, they’ll fuck on the couch and drift off there until Derek comes in and wakes them long enough to nudge them towards the bedroom. Laura will look at the sweat on his pale skin, those dark flat eyes of hers speculative.

She won’t say a word about it.

And for that, Stiles is thankful.

.  
  
They fall into a pattern. Sleep, work, hunt, fuck. Hunt, fuck, work, sleep. They start to see Stiles less and less, and when they do, he's gaunt and tired, puffy purpling bruises under his eyes. He eats sluggishly whenever he actually makes it home for dinner, his hands trembling faintly whenever he grips the silverware. Laura knows that Derek confronted McCall about it after Stiles' second week on the case, because he'd come to her office afterwards, his jaw tight, claws punching holes through the palms of his hands. He'd crawled under her desk and touched her all through her appointment, his tongue hot and slick against her cunt.   
  
"It's only a matter of time," she whispers to Derek in the dead of the night. The moon is full and their home is cold. It is the third night in a row that Stiles hasn't come home, and she feels his absence keenly now, without his body pressed between hers and Derek's.  
  
Derek makes a noise against her collarbone, glancing up from beneath his lashes.   
  
Laura clears her throat, eyes burning with the threat of tears. "We have to be realistic here, Derek. Stiles is better than all of them. He's been on the case for a month. You know he's going to figure it out."  
  
Derek's eyes are dark and fathomless. Laura has no idea what he's thinking.  
  
"And then?" he whispers, his voice creaking like an old saw. "Do we kill him?"  
  
Even the idea of it hurts. Stiles is pack. Family. He's _theirs_ , and they may be murderers, psychopaths, and whatever else the papers will brand them, but they don't kill their own.   
  
She licks her lips. "If we have to."  
  
" _No._ " The denial is fast and hard, striking her like a whip. Derek pushes himself off of her, face a mask of anger. Betrayal. Anguish. His expression twists again, teeth a flash of white in the moonlight. "No, no, we don't—"

"Derek. _Derek_!"  
  
Derek stops growling, the shift going out of him the moment her eyes flare red. Like a puppet with its strings cut, he collapses back down against her. "So that's it?"  
  
"It's only a matter of time."  
  
Derek glares at her. "Yeah, you've already said that."  
  
"It's only a matter of time," Laura repeats, swallowing against the lump in her throat. "So, let's shatter the clock. Give him the evidence that he needs and see what he does. Better find out now than later."  
  
The room is quiet, Derek still in her arms. He breathes out a shaky sigh. "And then we kill him?"  
  
Laura steels herself, spine straightening. Already she is in mourning.  
  
"Yes," she breathes. "If we have to."  
  
"Kill Stiles. Then we run."  
  
Laura nods slowly, lifting her claws to the light. She tries to imagine them glistening wet and red, slick with Stiles' blood. Not prey. But _Stiles'_. She can't do it. When the time comes, she'll have to use a knife.  
  
"Then we run."  
  
.

When he’s asleep, Stiles looks just as young and innocent as he did when he first came to them. So quiet, so trusting, body curved in towards Derek, leeching the heat from his body. It’s early still, close enough to dawn that the sunlight drifting in through their windows to pool against Stiles’ thighs is weak, diluted, and almost dreamy.  
  
It's almost easy to forget the necklace that Laura planted on last night's kill. How her hands had shaken as she laid it out carefully, fingers stroking reverently over the pendent. She'd always loved that necklace, ever since Stiles fastened it around her neck for the first time. She'd tackled him, shrieking with joy, and Derek had laughed as they rolled around the living room. He'd tried to separate them, in the end, but they'd just pulled him down with them. It was a good day. Laura had chosen the necklace for that reason, because Stiles was sure to recognize it.

Derek cups Stiles’ skull in the palm of his hand, fingers threading through the short hairs there. It’d be so easy, he thinks. So easy to crush Stiles' skull right now and spare them the heartache. But he won’t. He _can't_. Stiles is perfect. Stiles is his and Laura’s, he’s _theirs_ , the way nothing has truly been theirs since the fire. Since Cora. If it comes to it, if they have to kill him, Laura won't make Derek do it.

Stiles whines in his sleep, pushing his head up into Derek’s hand. Derek smiles, fingers drifting down Stiles’ body. It’s a soft, exploratory touch, questing down his shoulder blades and along the long line of his spine. He pauses over the curve of Stiles’ ass, considering, and stops himself.

Laura hasn’t been back yet, he thinks. She’d want to be here for this.

But she’ll be back soon and then they can both forget, together.

With that in mind, Derek nudges his thumb against the furl of Stiles’ hole. He circles the rim with light touches for a moment, watching Stiles for any sign of waking. When Stiles only smacks his lips in response, Derek lets his thumb sink in.

It goes easily enough, tight heat eagerly accepting Derek’s finger. Stiles may not be wet still, but he’s stretched and relaxed, luxurious in sleep.

Derek plays with him for a moment more, fucking him with his thumb, never letting it go past the knuckle. Then he reaches over for the lube.

He’s quick and efficient, fingering Stiles open easily. He doesn’t need much prep at all, taking two, then three fingers eagerly, his whole body humming with pleasure. He’s close to waking up, eyelids fluttering every few seconds, as if he’s slipped into a particularly good dream.

By the time Derek is carefully maneuvering his pliant body into position, the front door is clicking open. He listens to Laura close it gently, kicking out of her heels and shrugging off her coat. She’d left early, just after Derek had gotten home and found them on the couch, so she can’t have slept much. If he’s lucky, that will mean that she’ll keep undressing, shedding layer after layer as she goes, until she’s naked when she finally comes in to see her surprise.

Derek runs a hand slick with lube up and down his dick, making sure to get it good and wet.

Then, slowly, so very slowly, he sinks into Stiles’ inviting heat.

It’s so good, so fucking good, tight and wet, fucking perfection. It’s agony, going so slowly, every inch inside feels like it takes a millennia, but finally, he’s fully seated, Stiles murmuring in his sleep below him.

He feels Laura’s slight breath of surprise when she enters the room, and turns to give her a sly look over his shoulder.

She pads closer, her eyes wide, sweeping up and down Stiles’ body, settling on all the sweet spaces. His wet, parted lips. The faint blush dusting his chest, cheekbones, and ears. His cock, stiffening slowly against his belly. And finally, to where Derek is pressed into him.

The bed dips faintly when she perches on the edge, jostling Stiles, but still he doesn’t wake. She reaches over, reverently stroking down his chest and belly, her eyes gleaming red. She doesn’t stop there, trailing her nails through the thatch of dark hair around his cock and then taking him in hand. She holds him like that, instead of moving, and looks at Derek, brow cocked and inquiring.

 _You shouldn’t have_ , she mouths.

If Derek were Stiles, he’d have winked at her. Maybe made kissy faces in her direction. Instead, Derek gives her a stilted smile and finally, _finally_ , jerks his hips forward.

Stiles’ whole body rocks with the motion and he shudders from head to toe, licking his lips. Laura tightens her hand around his dick, eyes still locked to Derek’s. _Again_ , she mouths.

Derek eagerly obliges, rutting carefully into Stiles as Laura starts to jerk him in strokes made to match. With each thrust, Stiles rocks forward, body still lax with sleep. So warm and sweet, Derek can’t wait until he wakes to this.

He doesn’t have to wait much longer. The longer and harder that Derek’s strokes inside of him become, the more Stiles whimpers, his body hesitantly coming to life beneath their hands. It’s heady and enticing, for the exact opposite reasons that come with sending someone swiftly into death with these same hands.

His eyelids shiver and he’s started to move along with Derek, movements clumsy and slow as he attempts to help Derek along, still half in sleep. Laura sends Derek a quick grin, jerking him even faster and motioning for Derek to do the same.

So he does.

He fucks him harder as Stiles comes to life under him, as his eyes flutter open, pupils already so large that his eyes glint black. They watch his pulse jump as Stiles registers what’s going on, darting from Derek to Laura and back, pausing on their grinning mouths and then dipping down to where they’re touching him.

His dick jumps against Laura’s hand, a spurt of precome dribbling from the tip, and she laughs, loud and sharp in the quiet of the early morning.

“You assholes,” Stiles whispers, his voice raspy and still clogged with sleep, head tipping back to bare his throat as his body arches in pleasure.

“You love it,” Laura whispers, gently touching the dip of his throat with one hand, tapping out an unsteady rhythm there with her claw.

Stiles shivers all over, body tightening around Derek, ankles locking at the small of his back as he throws his head back and comes with a wail.

Derek fucks him through it, watching Stiles come back down to their level, as he smiles warmly at Laura and motions her towards him. She feeds him each of her fingers, makes him suck and lick the come from them before she straddles his face, the muscles of her back clenching as Stiles licks slowly into her, his brain still coming back online.

Derek keeps fucking him, watches Stiles get hard again, as Laura comes the first time against his mouth, then as she scrambles back down his body so she can sink down onto his still sloppy cock. She takes him in to the hilt, a desperate curl to her mouth as she rides him with abandon, her curls stuck to Derek’s chest.

Laura comes again with Stiles inside of her, her claws digging into Derek’s thigh as she rides it out, moving her hips against them until she gets her breath back. Derek can tell when Stiles comes again, because he sobs as it’s dragged out of him, Laura letting out a punched deep breath as his come settles into her.

She pulls off of him carefully, collapsing against Stiles’ chest, and they both just breathe for a moment, pink and shiny with sweat. The urge to come is almost overwhelming now, with the scent of them in the air, and Derek whines as they both look at him, still breathless and gasping. Like this, Derek can see Stiles’ come smeared against the lips of Laura’s cunt. He wants to taste it, wants to come, wants to—

“Derek,” Laura murmurs, and he jerks, eyes darting up to hers.

She smiles at him, eyes red, and whispers, “Come.”

He does.

.

Stiles leaves that morning in high spirits. He spends his morning at the academy, eats the lunch that Derek packed him, and spends the rest of the afternoon at McCall’s side.

He isn’t expecting new evidence.

He definitely isn’t expecting what that evidence means to him.

It’s really nothing much. Just a simple pendant on a slender silver chain found near the Ripper’s latest victim. Stiles keeps his mouth shut the entire time they’re talking, even when McCall asks him what he makes of it.

It isn’t concrete, but it presents the possibility that the Ripper might be a woman.

The Ripper isn’t a woman.

The Ripper is actually two people. One man, one woman. A set of fraternal twins born in the mid-eighties. Stiles knows their address, their phone numbers, hell, he even knows their social security numbers.

He stays quiet about it.

Because that simple necklace is the same one that he had made for Laura three years ago. One of a kind.

She could have been to the crime scene and dropped it, he reasons as he’s driving home, white-lipped and furious. But she hasn’t been. Laura hasn’t been consulting at all for the last three weeks. So why would a necklace belonging to Laura Hale be at Stiles’ crime scene?

He reaches the house just as the sun is going down, the thin, diluted rays barely making it over the roof. Shadows grow long on the pavements, making the house he’s called home for years into something straight out of a nightmare.

There’s the tree that they’d leaned against the time that Derek surprised him and Laura with a picnic. There’s the scuff mark from where he’d nearly sent the jeep straight through the garage. There’s the patch of grass where Laura first sucked him off. All of these familiar things, tinged with something dark now. Something impossible.

Stiles wants to tell himself that he’s wrong. That this is just his imagination. He's overworked and exhausted, so he's over thinking things. Putting evidence where there is none.

But, whispers an insidious voice in the back of his head, there’s always been something about the Hales.

Stiles enters the house with his gun drawn, the safety off, but angled towards the floor. He can still talk to them, he tells himself. They’ve been his for years, and he’s been theirs. Surely they’d at least listen to reason. Maybe he won’t have to hurt them.

Maybe they won’t try to hurt him.

The house is eerily quiet inside, utterly devoid of life. It feels cold in a way that it never has, but maybe that’s just his blood turning to ice inside his veins. The fear creeping in and turning him to stone.

He makes his way through the hallway silently and in through the kitchen, making a circuit around the first floor. All is quiet. But then, it would be, wouldn’t it? Laura and Derek aren’t just killers, they’re _wolves_. If they are here, they know.

They know that he’s here. That he knows. If they didn’t, they would have called out to him by now.

Upstairs. He’ll check the bedrooms, and then he’ll call it in.

There are three bedrooms upstairs in addition to the guest bedroom on the first floor, but they’ve only ever needed the one. They keep up appearances if there are guests, scattering articles of clothing around Stiles’ and Derek’s supposed bedrooms, mussing the sheets, but they’ve always ended the night in Laura’s room. Their room.

He pushes the door to that room open now, eyes immediately catching sight of Derek standing near the window. He’s looking out on the backyard, shoulders relaxed, his hands folded together at the base of his spine. His back is to the door, wide open and vulnerable, but Stiles isn’t delusional enough to think that means Derek isn’t aware of his presence. He’s just not a threat, Stiles realizes, a chill going down his spine.

Stiles’ eyes dart around the room, checking all the nooks and crannies before he takes a step inside. There’s luggage spread out across the bed, most of the bags still open, their guts spilling out over the sides. Clothes, books, the sweater that Stiles had gotten Laura for her birthday last year caught on a zipper. All things that Stiles recognizes.

They’ve packed in a hurry, not even folding the clothes before dumping them inside. They were going to leave. Just vanish from Stiles’ life, like a pair of ghosts. No note, nothing, just an empty house that should have been full.

Stiles raises the gun with shaky hands, keeping it trained between Derek’s shoulder blades. They aren’t wolfsbane bullets, but if he can hit Derek’s spine… well, if he hits the spine then maybe nobody has to die today.

Stiles licks his lips. “Where’s Laura?”

His voice trembles on her name. It shouldn’t, and he hates that it’s there, but the waver is there. For a fraction of a second, but undeniable.

Derek sighs, all the breath shivering out of his body at once. His shoulders slump, the perfect picture of defeat. “You shouldn’t be here, Stiles.”

Stiles’ hands are shaking and sweaty. He wants to put the gun down and dry them off, wipe the sweat beading on his brow. “Why not, Derek? Where are you and Laura going?”

Finally Derek turns, a terrible look in his eyes. It isn’t what Stiles had expected. He’d run through dozens of scenarios in the car on the way here, but never once had those terribly sad eyes featured. He’d imagined Derek to be the angry one. Maybe, maybe Laura would be sad, but Derek would be livid. Hateful. Derek got to play the monster in his imagination, their sweet Derek with his shy smiles. All bark and no bite, Laura used to say, playfully bumping their hips together.

But maybe he was wrong about that.

“A place was made for you in our world,” Derek tells Stiles, wrapping his arms around his torso. His eyes are glassy. “For all of us. Where we could all be happy. Together.”

“Derek,” Stiles croaks, taking a step forward. Then another, and another, until he’s at Derek’s side. His hand trembles. Reluctantly, he lowers the gun. “Where’s Laura?”

Derek stares at him, lifting a hand to Stiles’ cheek. He strokes it once, briefly, and Stiles leans into the familiar touch. He looks at Stiles, pain in his gaze, and still cupping Stiles’ cheek, whispers, “Behind you.”

The pain is unexpectedly agonizing.

Stiles has broken bones before. He’s split the skin of his knee. Needed a couple major stitches due to his own clumsiness, but this pain is something else. This pain is agonizing, his mind whiting out as Laura slices a jagged line across his abdomen, her knife gutting him like some kind of animal. The knife is yanked from his gut with a casual cruelness, and Stiles groans loudly, trailing off into a whimper as he slumps forward into Derek as if all of his strings have been cut.

Derek catches him easily, mindful of the wound as he lowers Stiles slowly to the ground, deftly maneuvering him into his lap.

Every bit of Derek is soft right now, his fingers stroking through Stiles’ short hair, nails scraping carefully over his scalp. He murmurs quiet nonsense, lips pressed to Stiles’ temple as Stiles gasps desperately for breath, frantically pressing down against the wound. His hands are sloppy though, numb with pain, and he can’t seem to find it. Derek’s hand joins his after a moment of further struggle, pressing down firmly and shushing Stiles when his breath hitches from the pain.

Laura lowers herself onto her knees before them, Stiles’ blood instantly soaking her nicest skirt. She touches Stiles hesitantly — his cheek, nose, lips, and throat — then leans forward to press her brow against his.

“We let you know us. See us,” she whispers, voice shaking, eyes glimmering with unshed tears. She swallows once, stroking a hand down Stiles’ face. “We gave you a rare gift, but you didn’t want it.”

“Didn’t I?” Stiles manages to gasp out, his whole body shaking. He’s going into shock.

“You would deny us our lives,” Laura hisses, her grip turning hard. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough. She sounds as if she’s the one who’s been stabbed.

“No,” Stiles whispers. “N-no. Never that.”

“Our freedom then. We have loved you. Clothed you. Taken you into our hearts and made you a home, but you would let us rot in a prison cell? Never feel the moon again? The wind? The thrill of the hunt?.”

Stiles gasps, fingers tightening around Derek’s. “Maybe.”

“You came here to find us. Did you believe you could change us?” Derek interjects quietly, breath hot against Stiles’ pulse. “The way we have changed you?”

He’s still holding Derek’s hand, but it’s Laura that he’s looking at. It’s Laura that he sees, and he’s shocked to realize that she’s grieving. That they both are. And why shouldn’t they? Stiles has spent years with them. With them, he is complete. Whole. And despite the blood and the pain, the desperation, he’s willing to bet that they feel the same way about him.

Stiles gasps out a laugh, shaking and bloodless in the home that he’s spent years loving them in. On the floor of the room where he endured Derek’s snoring and Laura’s octopus arms. He laughs, and whispers, “I already have.”

His head lolls back against Derek’s shoulder, and Stiles sees the exact moment that her expression twists into something else. Astonishment, maybe. Surprise. Whatever it is, it’s not what she expected.

He’s so tired. And Derek is so warm.

“Hey,” Stiles whispers, voice barely a croak as Laura finally starts to cry. He tries to stroke her hair, but can’t manage to do more than touch it. “Hey, hey, don’t do that.”

He’s going to pass out. Stomach wounds take hours to kill you, but this one feels like it’s going to take less than that. But he’ll miss them, he’s beginning to realize. Maybe he wouldn’t have even turned them in, in the end, if they’d given him time to talk. Not if it was them. Someone would have figured it out eventually, but he could have gotten them out. Hidden them away, where no one would look.

Stiles could have had them.

“Hey,” he says again, stroking Derek’s hand clumsily. His speech is slurred thick, but he knows they’ll understand him. Werewolves have magic hearing, after all. “Know what?”

Laura glances at him, and Derek’s fingers tighten.

“What?” Laura asks, voice thick.

He smiles at them, darkness creeping around the edges of his vision. “I forgive you.”

.

“It was the damndest thing. Looked away for one minute and the next, there you were. Sitting propped up against the doors of the lobby, blood all over ya. Any idea who might have done that to ya, son?”

Stiles has been awake for fifteen minutes. Agent McCall is sitting off to the side, his dark eyes serious.

Stiles touches the gauze wrapped around his mid-section, feeling the pain as if from afar.

They hadn’t killed him after all.

But from the look in McCall’s eye, they’re also long gone.

“Son? Did you hear me?”

Stiles smiles, or tries to. It doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

His eyes drop to the vase of purple flowers in the corner. They linger there, considering. It's possible that a colleague had sent them, but he's willing to bet that it was Laura.  
  
“No idea,” he says with a shrug. The movement pulls on his stitches.

Wherever they are, though, Stiles will find them.  
  
After all, they're his. They've made their homes in each other, all of them. Him, Derek, and Laura. They are _changed_ , the lines forever blurred. Which means that whatever darkness is inside of them? It's inside of him too.

.

The house is the same. Over the years, he’d thought… Well, Derek doesn’t know what he’d thought. His home was in a constant state of flux. Some days, most days even, home was Laura. Home was her eyes, her smile, a smear of blood going from her wrist and to his own. Other days, home was Stiles. The cage of his arms or the way he looked while he slept. Young. Innocent.

Home was flesh. Sometimes the flesh was raw, the feel of gristle between his teeth. Sometimes it was stewed, poached, or broiled. Other times, it was Stiles’ skin beneath his lips. Laura’s collarbone under his fingers. The smell of sex and sweat in the air.

Home is ever changing, but it is only ever that lonely house in the woods in his nightmares.

There, he would imagine it a hulking shadow. A predator in the dark. Something that lurks just out of sight, a fire ready to consume.

Now though, the house is just a house. A lonely, crumbling house.

Laura glances at him, her eyebrows raised. Cocks her head, as if to say, _Well? Are you coming_?

She’s changed as much as he has, after Stiles. Italy was lonely without him.

The inside of the house is nothing like he remembers. The embers have turned to ash and all that’s left are the memories. It shouldn’t frighten him, so it doesn’t. They creep through the remains of the entryway and on to the dining room. The living room. The kitchen.

They find her in the basement.

There are flowers wrapped lovingly around her limbs, the purple blossoms a vivid splash of color against her dead flesh. They’re everywhere — in her hair, the bend of her elbows, the soft meat of her thighs — braided carefully around the ropes that hold her in place.

It’s her hands though, that interest him the most. Not the carefully bloodied glass wings spread out behind her, or the messy stitching that’s sewn her mouth shut.

Kate’s hands are _burnt_ , held out in front of her as if in supplication.

He’d dipped them in gasoline and set them on fire, likely while she was still alive.

“Oh,” Laura breathes, her eyes wide. Rapturous. She looks the way she does when he’s on his knees before her or fresh from a kill. Like she’s found a new religion. “It’s lovely.”

It is.

It’s beautiful and perfect, right down to the spiral placed lovingly beneath her feet...

Derek sucks in a sharp breath and darts forward, making a grab for the delicately folded paper placed at the very center of the spiral. It’s addressed to them, their names written there in a chicken scratch that is painfully familiar.

Laura holds her breath as Derek flips the note open, eyes darting from it to the corpse before them.

 _A gift_ , it reads. _Happy Birthday._

Laura turns to him, her eyes wide, and Derek nods, rather breathless himself.

It’s a promise. An offering. An invitation.

Wordlessly, he takes Laura’s hand and turns his back on the lonely house in the woods.

Home is waiting for them, and if he knows Stiles at all, he won’t have gone far.

.

You don’t start a love story with a murder.

But then, you don’t usually end with one either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beginning scene based heavily off of the first page and a half of The Silence of the Lambs, so some dialogue has been lifted. Again, apologies if parts of this seem a little rushed. My betas agreed that it seemed to flow okay, but since I had like another 3k planned, it all seems rushed to me. Never again, ER. Never again.


End file.
